Today, host side applications (e.g. antivirus software) use an operating system application programming interface (API) to read in data (e.g. malware definition data) from storage to detect malware. Additionally, other storage specific commands can be used to read, write, and otherwise manage stored data. For example, vendor specific commands, SMART Command Transport (SCT), negative logical block addresses (LBA), etc., can be used to process stored data. However these methods can be easily subverted by malware to give wrong information to the caller. In addition, there is no provision for configuring the methods to provide application specific protection. Furthermore, data that is stored in can easily be attacked by malware, or that stored content that is protected by digital rights management (DRM) may be copied or altered. In addition, storage coupled to a computer may offer additional services that are not easily activated in the field.